How to: Get more life from your MacBook’s battery
Apple’s notebooks have a reputation for good battery life, often best of class. Of course, that doesn’t mean you are satisfied or that you should be with your MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. Here are some practical tips for getting more from your portable.
Whether you are out and about or sitting on the couch, here are some tips to get more computing time from your Mac portable:
Reduce or eliminate energy wasting hardware features:
- Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when you are not using them. For example, if you are out and about, try using the touchpad or a wired mouse instead of a wireless unit. Likewise, use a wired Ethernet connection where you can and don’t forget to shut off Airport.
- Working in normal daylight? Turn off keyboard backlighting.
- Turn off your Mac’s remote control infrared receiver.
Tip: Set Airport and Wi-Fi to display icons in the menu bar so you can quickly disable them when not in use.
Of course, the oldest battery saving trick in the world is to dim the screen when you are working. Not enough screen brightness to see? Try sitting in a darker, less bright spot.
Need to go to the bathroom? Warm up your coffee? Sleep the display when you stop or pause work and one of the the easiest ways to do this is by setting one corner of your screen to “Sleep Display,” which will allow you to turn off your Mac portable’s display by simply positioning the mouse cursor in a corner. Alternately, completely dim the screen by using the keyboard brightness controls.
Tip: System Preferences -> Exposé -> pick a corner and select “Sleep Display”
Tip: Use your Mac portable’s power button to put your baby to sleep
When taking longer breaks—5 minutes or more—just put your Mac to sleep by choosing sleep from the Apple Menu, pressing the power button and clicking sleep, or you can just put the lid down.
Want more tips on how to get more from your Mac portable’s battery? Check out Apple’s notebook battery guide. Also, both MacFixIt and iBoughtAMac both offer tips for getting more run time from your Mac notebook.
Question, comments, tips of your own? Share ‘em below in the comments…
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March 15th, 2009
System Preferences > Energy Saver > Settings For: Battery > Options > Processor Performance: Reduced.